Celebration February 20 - March 4, 2001 on Korean restaurants, multiple birthday party, and clinical conspiracy.

	We have now such an April weather - sometimes a storm, sometimes sunshine...

Many nationalities live peacefully next to each other, here in California. We probably like Asians best - especially their cuisines . Wanting to enrich our menu, we elected last Saturday to have Korean lunch. We parked our car at a Korean joint named Secret Garden and stepped inside a gloomy, dark establishment.

A waitress led us to a freshly wiped (read: wet) table, after a while brought their menus and water (which is customary brought to every meal). In fact, menus were partially in English, but it was not any clearer than Korean. Trying to order, Sid dared to ask what a Happy Family (that's the name of the food from the menu) was made of, the waitress unfocused her gaze somewhere over my shoulder and walked away. I assumed naively that she went to ask someone who speaks English, but she had no such intention; she simply went to the next table to converse merrily (in Korean) with other guests and then, without a single look in our direction, marched to a cash register to deal with their check.

So this was the first time I encountered racism. And it was also the first time - and the last time - we ever have been to Secret Garden.

Simply leaving the place took care of the bad service (or rather no service at all), yet it did not remove our hunger. I urged Sid to go to Chef Chu's (a wonderful Chinese place, practically around the corner from where we live), but he insisted on Korean food -- he said he did not want us to make a racist conclusion of our own.

	Favourite Borel Hill on a rainy day

Hanuri was light and pleasant, and the waitress there was obviously thrown out of balance. First she made very clear that this was a Korean restaurant, and anxiously queried us whether we really intended to eat there. We were possibly the first "round eyes" who ever dined there (an average white American stuffs himself with hamburgers and steaks and would not enter an Asian food place, not to mention eating there). The waitress quieted down with our order (chicken barbecue and fish with vegetables) -- she did not need to tell us that THIS we would REALLY NOT WANT. Asians eat various delicacies and if they have a feeling that a white person cannot swallow them for some reason, they try to talk him or her out of it (which they assume correctly about strange slimy creatures, but also about roasted fat pork, which our guys like to eat at one Taiwanese place, when they get tired of lean meat). Sometimes they resort to not listing any specialties in English.

Food at Hanuri was excellent, we got extra kim-chi (hot pickled cabbage), service was nice and quick - well, not all Korean restaurants are same... still, we were for yet another good food on the same day.

I know relatively very few people here, of whom almost half (that is, three ) were born in February. It has an obvious advantage, for we can celebrate it all at once.

The party took place at Kren's (where else?), attended by a classical team of Krens, Tomas, and us. I confess we caused a minor disturbance as we desperately needed rest after climbing and exhaustion with Koreans, and overslept a little. George's phone call about a duck on the table threw me off balance enough to make me forget Mavica at home -- hence there will be pictures after Krens finish their film and have it developed.

	Sometimes even the sun gets out...

Arriving late, we went straight for good food and lot of wine. My favorite best was a fruitcake (with fresh fruit!) bearing the number 73. It did not make me wonder that night (did I say there was plenty of wine?), but I kept thinking it over for the whole Sunday, whether Madeleine was just twelve instead of thirteen, or whether Martina made Sid younger a bit. Tomas reached quarter century for sure -- that means Sid and Madlenka had to share only 48 years!

Cross-examining Martina, I learned that a couple years ago it was Sid who claimed to be 34 while checking his passport disclosed he was only 33. Who can remember it exactly anyway? Since then Martina keeps his number a little lower, just in case.

No one can stop aging and our last few weeks felt like at a retirement home -- there almost wasn't a day when at least one of us would not go to a doctor. In a rapid succession, we had annual physical checkups (insurance covers one full examination per year, ladies over forty get a mammogram), blood samples, and gynecologic tests (those are, of course, only for me ).

My annual physical made me feel a little like in a wild dream -- from the doctor's office on second floor they sent me to the lobby on first floor, to register as a new patient. A clerk there insisted I already WAS registered and proved it by reciting all my data. I started hoping that our insurance includes psychiatric treatments (this was only my second time at the clinic, and the first time I appeared only as Sid's driver as he could not use his sprained ankle, and I don't recall ever filling out anything). Then again, I thought, I might receive Nobel's Prize (if this would lead to my discovery of time warp). And I trust that FBI know what they're doing (I understand it is prudent to collect information on aliens, but I don't quite get why to stuff these data into medical facilities' computers?).

I rode the elevator back to second floor, to internal medicine reception, and familiarized the clerk THERE with the fact I already was registered, only as Karolina, not Carol. As I prepared to sit orderly in a waiting room, a small nurse ran out and called my name. As I approached her, she kept smiling wider and wider, and welcomed me with a cheerful "So There You Are!" Entering an exam room, she winked "I know all about you!" I resigned to the reality that They have me perfectly under control (would not they eventually be some kind of extraterrestrials???), and let her test my blood pressure.

Yet there's always man behind everything. The nurse was very talkative, and during the measurements, checking weight and similar activities, she explained that yesterday she took care of my husband, who told her in detail about our finding each other, which she found very romantic (I don't know how he managed since she did not let me finish any sentence).

The biggest disappointment came at the end -- it turned out that no FBI nor extraterrestrials are interested in me, not to mention Nobel Prize committee. My data got into the computer in the fall as I registered at gynecologic clinic in Portola Valley -- a subsidiary. One good thing though -- I did not have to fill out another annoying form!

Unfortunately also this visit to the clinic ended like my previous one (brining Sid to E.R.) -- within three days I laid down to bed with some ugly streptococcus. Three days in bed with tea and vitamins brought no improvement, I elected to schedule an appointment (with my doctor, if possible) so that I would not need to wait for hours at E.R. When they asked me for the third time on the phone to speak louder, and I could only weakly croak that if I could speak louder I would not need a doctor , they finally gave in and let me see the doctor the same day.

Martina says that doctors can only cure about 27 illnesses -- and with the rest, it is better to lay down and wait till it passes. She is right -- now I feel better so I can write my journals again (but I cheated a little -- I went to the doctor's and am taking antibiotics )!

Copyright © 2001-2004 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.